The kettle hung over the fire, close enough that the thick contents slowly boiled.

Blup. Blup. Blup.

It was actually a rather irritating noise, but not much to do about it if the contents were to be properly cooked.

Blup. Blup.

She sighed and stirred the contents. There’d be hell to pay if the whole mess burned.

Blup. Blup-up. Blup Blup.

In stories, when apprentices were left alone to tend a fire and the item over said fire, it was something interesting, like the salmon of wisdom or a love potion or something like that. So what did she get? A potion that was supposed to cure male baldness. Ugh.

She wasn’t even sure if the potion was to be drunk or applied topically. If it was the former, she was pretty sure that she’d suffer with baldness before downing this batch of putrid green vileness. I mean, who really used eye of a newt anymore? And she just knew that when they ran out, she’d be the one dredging the lake looking for replacements newts.

Did they even use any other part of the newt? Or just the eye. Seemed hardly fair to the newt to have to give up his life just so some fat old guy could get his hair back.

But wait, did newts regenerate? Maybe she’d have to pluck newt eyes from newt eye sockets and then throw the things back into the lake.

She shuddered at the thought of that. “‘Settle down and marry,’ they said. ‘Who wants to marry a working woman?’ they said. Why didn’t I listen to them?” she muttered.

But of course she knew precisely why she hadn’t, and as boring as stirring this damned potion was, it was far better than marrying young and growing old before her time. She was going to be an independent woman. A woman who depended upon no one except herself for her living. And if she had to live with some old hag to achieve that, so be it.

As if drawn by her thoughts, the old hag in question opened the door and came in.

Of course she wasn’t really old. Nor was she a hag. But Mary liked to pretend the witch was an old hag. Because it felt more traditional. I mean really, who expected a witch to be blonde and buxom and to have half the young men of the village following her around every time she went out the door.

Mary had a sneaking suspicion that a portion of the baby-not they made was being used by her mistress rather than being sold.

“How are we doing today?” Even her voice was chipper.

“Fine Mistress Jones,” Mary replied, staring intently into the pot.

“Oh come now, how many times do I have to tell you, call me Carol!”

“But it just seems wrong!” cried Mary.

“Why?” said Carol. “You’re not much younger than my sister. And truly, ‘Mistress’ is just so last century!” She laughed brightly as she took off her cloak and hung it on an empty peg by the door. “I think you’ve spent entirely too much time sitting over the fire inhaling Mr. Rozinski’s hair tonic. Why don’t you go outside and get some fresh air, and then we’ll start on dinner.”

“Yes Carol,” said Mary. She stood up, then walked over to the door to put on her shoes. Carol insisted they not wear shoes in the house. When Mary asked to be her apprentice she was expecting strangeness, but not this kind of strangeness.

“Don’t forget your bonnet,” said Carol. “The sun’s no good for your skin!”

And with that Mary closed the door on the sunny yellow cabin, took a deep breath of fresh air, and decided that maybe you didn’t have to be all ugly and dress in black to be a witch, but she was damned if she was going to dress in pink like Carol.

The knife clattered to the floor. His hands, numb with cold and slick with blood, couldn’t hold it any longer.

“Now you’ve done it,” said the damned voice in the back of his head. “This will be it for you for sure.”

He quickly stopped down, grabbed the knife, and surreptitiously wiped the blade on his bloody pants. He held the knife up and stared at his hands. They told him to buy gloves, but he had forgotten or maybe ignored them, sure he could handle it.

He was wrong and desperately wished for gloves, but it was too late.

He stared at the body before him, hanging from a chain and draining of blood. Blood pooling on the floor. A lake of blood and he was standing right in the middle of it.

What made him think he could do this? It wasn’t that he was squeamish–not really. It’s just that he never thought about how cold it would be. Or how much blood there would be.

“HEY! What the hell are you doing?” The angry voice broke into his reverie, and startled him into dropping the knife again.

He looked down at the knife lying in the pool of blood then turned on his heel and ran for the door, slipping in pools of blood, but managing somehow not to fall.

And that was David’s first and last day working at the slaughterhouse.

I don’t think I’ve ever seriously made a single New Years Resolution. Yeah I made up some when pressed by my friends, but it was just something off the top of my head, not anything I meant.

I’ve never quite gotten the point of New Years Resolutions.

If something is important, why not just do it once you have decided it is important?

Mind you, this doesn’t always work either–I think I threw dozens of cigarette packs out the car window in the years I was trying to quit. But when I finally quit it was in July (1997, so it’s been 11 1/2 years), far from the time of Resolutions. (For those who are interested, going back on anti-depressants was the little extra push I needed to quit, to tone down my anxiety.)

I started regularly going to the gym during autumn (seven years ago I think).

Over the past several years I have slowly added more organic, healthy, and whole grain foods into my diet.

None of these things were resolutions. All that happened was that I realized I needed to make a change in my life and did it. Doesn’t mean it was easy, it doesn’t mean that tricks don’t hurt (an exercise partner is first and foremost a most useful trick).

Saying you’re doing something and telling others also helps–the knowledge that someone might ask you how things are going is a good impetus for keeping things going.

Yes, things don’t always work. I’ve been trying for years to get a regular writing schedule, but other than writing here (on my weblog), I’ve never been able to keep a regular writing schedule for more than a month and a half. But I think overall I have a pretty good success rate–at least for the important stuff.

So consider resolving not to make any resolutions this year. If nothing else, you’ll be able to enjoy January without any extra guilt.

I woke up this morning to discover that the UCF has been outed. I expect the phone to start ringing off the hook any minute; perhaps I can get Valerie Plame to give me some advice on dealing with all the press now that my life of secrecy is over.

So what is this secret organization I have been involved in?

We are a government funded organization created to promote the anti-anti-LHC agenda. Or so say the insane psychopaths at the LHC “facts” website. Unfortunately, I only recently discovered that we’re government funded, and am going to have to talk to Nathan (our fearless leader) about back pay. (You hear that Nathan? Gimme my money or I’m coming after your toaster!)

You see, all that stuff about Sophie from Shinola, Not-Sophie, International Hijack Day, Charlotte Misner, and even Tasty Tuesday are just a front.

So how did the UCF start? It was a dark and stormy night…

I was sitting at Starbucks minding my own business when he sat down across from me. Despite the dark glasses and cheap suit, the mustache was a give away.

“You?!” I gasped in surprise, “What are you doing here? Isn’t this a little bit off the beaten path for you?” I closed my laptop before he could get a good look a the screen.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t have much time, but I want you back in the game. No recriminations, no second guessing, the past is the past.”

“Right,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “I saw what you had done to Eric after the ‘toaster incident.’ I’m not foolish enough to fall for your bullshit again.”

“No, really. We’re on the up and up this time!” He lowered his voice and looked around guiltily. “The incident with Eric was a terrible accident–Jim was taken care of for taking matters into his own hands.”

I leaned forward, “and what price did you pay for your part in this? I know what happened to Jim. But I never heard anything about you paying your due.”

He lowered his glasses, and I was shocked by the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. “I paid. Trust me. I paid.” He slid the glasses back up his nose. “And we’ve brought Eric back from the dead. It took some doing, as we had to regenerate his fingertips and all, but we did it. And Jim is back into fighting trim as well. The bionic parts we got him have made him twice the man he was before.”

I looked down at my laptop, and shifted it to be squared with the edge of the table. “And what do I get out of this? I told you when I left I didn’t want any part of your schemes.” I stared into his lenses. “And more importantly, who else do you have and how’d you get ’em? If you brought back Eric and upgraded Jim I can see the hold you’d have on them. But that’s only a small part of the team.”

He laughed, “Oh I’ve got ’em all. I’m still in negotiations with MWT and Anne, and I’ve got some people I think we can bring in later, but I’ve mostly got the group back together.”

“Even Janiece?” I asked incredulously.

“Janiece, Kim, Jeri, Vince, Tania, Shawn, Tania, John and Matt. We’ve even got an international division.”

“So Janiece is in. How’d you convince her?”

“That’s between me and Janiece,” he said, sitting up a little more straight. I could see I wasn’t going to get anything else out of him.

“Lemme think about it. Call Janiece myself and see what she has to say. Then I’ll get back to you. You still using the same drops?”

“Yeah. We’re on the cheap this time.”

“Shit,” I said slouching down in my chair, “you want me to do this for free? I’ve got expenses y’know.”

“We’ve got fringe bennies,” he said. “I can get you and Shawn some extra money from the tech budget. We’ve got a slew of new toys.”

“Really?” That piqued my interest. “How can you afford the new toys?”

“Beta testing for the military. We try ’em out, and if they work for us, they get moved into production.”

“Nice,” I said. “Anything good?”

“I’ll tell you if you’re in.”

“Hell,” I said, “for new toys, I’m in.”

I was over at Stonekettle Station tormenting Jim, when I noticed a typo Jim made, ran with it, and ended up with the following. Now I’m trying to decided how curious I am about what happens.

(more…)

I’ve chosen the winner for the short story contest!

Here is the winning entry:

I was trapped by the fiend and I had to get moving again.

I tried pleading with him:
“Come on, just let me go. Please! I swear it’s in your best interest to let me go.”

He was unmoved.

I tried defiance:
“You can’t keep me here forever, you know. Someone is going to come looking for me. They’re going to notice I’m not at work. My friends will rescue me, you’ll see!”

He looked at me with that level gaze, imperturbable as ever.

I tried threatening:
“I’ll get out of this chair, I swear! And when I do, you’ll be sorry.”

He knew I lied. It wasn’t chains that held me immobile.

He yawned, showing white fangs of unnerving sharpness, but in the odor that emerged, revealed a weakness — bad breath.

I pounced. “Phew! Don’t you ever brush? What have you been eating? Nevermind, I can tell.”

When he remained unruffled by my jibes, I sagged against the chair. He was immune to insults as well, the bastard.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the phone ringing. Someone wanted to talk to me. What did they want? I’d never know. Would I ever be permitted to move again?

As the last ring faded into silence, my captor got bored and rose. He jumped off my lap and stretched luxuriously, first the front half, then the back.

Looking back at me slyly, he twitched his whiskers and moved on.

I was free to get the laundry, or that snack I’d wanted half an hour ago.

I was free!

For now.

He’d be back.

And now that I have checked the logs, the winner is ANNE! Congratulations Anne!

Anne has won a copy of The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner. If I can get moving, I’ll try to get it in the mail today, otherwise you’ll have to wait until Saturday.

I have to say that I really liked not knowing who wrote what, and that I was wrong in my guesses as to who wrote what story. If you all would like to out yourselves, let me know. :)

ADDENDUM the First:
(more…)

A request has been made to extend the contest deadline through the weekend.

As I am taking a vacation day Monday, I’ll extend the deadline through 11:55 PM Sunday.

So that should make Slacker #1 happy.

Don’t forget to enter my contest!

You’ve got through Saturday to come up with something good!

I occasionally am sent books to review for my book blog, and this time the publisher gave me one book to review and another book to give away.

So, a contest!

Seeing as how I love short short stories, you can submit one or more stories, and the story I like best wins.

Although you don’t have to, it would be nice if you posted the story anonymously or under a pseudonym that I can’t guess, so I won’t have any preconceived notions when I read the story. Just put your real e-mail address in so I can declare the winner and not have everyone claim to have written the story. (I won’t peek until the contest has been decided.)

You’ll have a week. The contest will end Saturday the 11th at 11:59 PM.

Kibitzing is not only allowed, it’s encouraged.

The only restriction is please keep it to a PG-13 rating.

If you’d like an idea of what I like, here is one of my all time favorite short short stories. And I know there are plenty of you out there who read but don’t comment. Since it can be completely anonymous, I fully expect everyone to participate. Got it?

Anguna Cbbe checked her makeup in the rear view mirror. Her father griped at her whenever he caught her doing it, claiming that she’d kill herself, but he wasn’t here, and despite his protests of her impending doom by vanity, she only checked her makeup at red lights.

She moved the mirror back to see behind her, hung her hands over the steering wheel, and tilted her head back against the seat rest. It had been a very long day, and the evening didn’t look to be much better. She’d promised her best friend she’d go out for drinks with her new boyfriend, but she had an ugly feeling Betty was trying to set her up.

Again.

While she was musing about the last time Betty had tried this, the car behind her blared its horn. Despite her closed windows, she could hear the man in the car cursing her out. Sighing she put the car into gear and moved through the intersection. The car behind her jerked into the empty opposing lane, zoomed past her, and then cut sharply in front of her as traffic appeared around the corner.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered to herself as he slammed on his brakes. “I don’t need this shit today.” As they arrived at the next intersection she kept slowing down, and as he went through the intersection she turned the wheel sharply to the right escaped down a cross street.

“What an asshole,” she muttered as she turned left to parallel her previous route.

She ended up at the bar without further incident but her already dark mood had soured further. When she stepped into the dark bar it took her a few moments to see Betty waving from a booth in the back. She sighed when she saw two men sitting with Betty. Anguna recognized Bozz, Betty’s latest dish right off, but although the man sitting with his back to the door looked strangely familiar, she didn’t think she knew who he was.

When Anguna got to the table Betty jumped up to give her a hug. “Bozz bought a friend along, I hope you don’t mind!” Betty said the same thing every time she did this, and it aways worked out very badly. At times she wonder if Betty was secretly punishing her for some past indiscretion.

Then Anguna looked at the man sitting at the table. It was the asshole who’d cut her off in traffic. He jumped out and sidled over to her. “The name’s Durian. You can call me Durian Smooth,” he said, pronouncing the word with about seven Os in the middle.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said Anguna.

Without a further word she turned on her heel, marched out the door to her car, drove home, and went to bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

The hearts hung, dripping just a little, from the limb.

“They give them up so easily,” the little man said, as he sat on the ground and looked up at the hearts. “Well, the young ones do,” he clarified.

“What about the old ones?” The woman was perched above him in the tree.

“The old ones, well, they know what they’d be giving up, so they almost never make a deal.” The man picked up the staff sitting on the ground beside him, and poked at the heart on the end, causing it to turn gently.

“You get the hearts, what do they get out of it?”

“Well, they think there’s something wrong with their hearts. They claim the hearts are broken,” he poked at another heart, causing it to turn as well. “But look at them! They’re perfect!”

He was silent for a moment staring at the hearts. “They’re relieving a moment of pain in the now, and giving up all possibility of future happiness. It’s madness, truly.”

“I still don’t understand how they could make such a deal.”

The man leaned back against the trunk of the tree. “Tis the nature of mortality I suppose. Life is fleeting and short, so they want happiness now.” He looked up at the woman. “They have a phrase that explains it as much as anything, I suppose.”

He straightened up and cleared his throat. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “It’s possible they could die on the morrow, but if they don’t, how can they be merry without their hearts?”

“Ah,” the little man replied, “that’s the rub. They can’t. ‘Course being as I’m the one collecting the hearts, I find it in my best interest to keep that part quiet.”

“So you do trick them,” she looked down at the little man accusingly.

“Some might claim that. But they should know what they’ve giving up, before they make the offer.”

“You mean they come to you?” She was incredulous.

“Yes, they do.” He opened the bag lying at his side and poured out a handful of golden coins. “They willingly trade cold rocks for their hearts.”

“Willingly?”

“Oh yes,” he replied, “eagerly even.”

She climbed down from the tree, her skirts flowing around her as she moved.

“Well, if it’s willing…”

“I thought I could convince ye lassie. These three are promised out, but I’ve two left. One for you, and one for me.” He plucked a heart from the branch and handed it to her.

She held it delicately in her palm, staring at it. “How long does it last?”

“About a fortnight, more or less.” He reached out and plucked the largest heart for himself. “Are ye ready?”

She nodded, and then pressed the bloody mass to her chest. After a second she gave a gasp and stared a the man, who had pressed his selection into his own chest. He walked over towards her and lifted her chin with his hands, leaving a smear of blood on her jaw. “Did I not tell you?” And with that he took her in his arms and lead her back to the tree.

(Inspiration here)

I was finishing changing into my gym clothes when a woman walked over to me and said, “I remembered my top today!”

I surreptitiously glanced around while she was putting down her bag, to see if she was talking to someone else.

No one else in the locker room.

“I brought two of ’em this time, since I forgot my top last time,” she clarified.

I made a non-committal noise and tried to finish getting ready, perhaps just a little faster.

She began to change. “Gotta take my bra off. When it gets wet, y’know…”

“Yeah,” I said, and shoved by gym bag in the locker, grabbing my mp3 player and the lock. “Have fun!” I said as I hurried out the door.

Of course she was there when I was done working out. She’d showered and was now finishing her dressing.

“Almost left my clothes in the shower!” she said. “Almost forgot my clothes!”

“That would be bad,” I acknowledged, trying to balance on one foot while trying to put on my pants without touching the locker room floor. She wandered over to the shower to retrieve her clothing. She took several moments in the process, rather surprising considering the size of the locker room.

She finished getting dressed and I had a chance to survey her clothing: a too large, somewhat ratty t-shirt; shorts that were really too small short, all things considered; and support hose, two shades darker than her flesh, and pulled up to her knees.

“Better dry my hair,” she said. “Don’t wanna catch the pneumonia.”

“It seemed quite pleasant out,” I offered, shoving everything in my gym bag.

“I felt a chill when I came in!” she said, and wandered over to the hair dryers. “Don’t wanna get sick!”

“Have a good evening!” I called as I quickly walked out of the locker room.

I checked the thermometer in the car. It was 76 F.

And that’s pretty much exactly how it went.

“What’s in the bag?”

“A Quantum Singularity.”

“Really? Where’s you get it?”

“Corner store. Got a great deal on it.”

“The store on the corner of North and Main?”

“Yup.”

“You get a certificate for it?”

“Nope. Like I said, it was a great deal.”

“So how do you know it’s the real deal?”

“Don’t. But figured it was worth a try.”

“Christ, you’re insane. That could kill you.”

“Aw, it’s not that bad. Those PSAs always exaggerate the danger of everything. Anyway, I’m gonnna open it here in a couple minutes. You wanna try some?”

“Hell no! I’m not a fool. Tell me you’re not going to try it here–you know there’s kids around the building.”

“It’ll be fine. He told me it was totally localized.”

“Shit. Gimme five minutes before you open that thing so I can get the hell away from here.”

“Whatever. See ya.”

“I doubt it.”

Barely made it down the block before I heard the soft pop and knew things had gone badly. Turned back around and saw a chunk of the building just missing. Thank god it looked like it was restricted to his apartment and hadn’t expanded further.

Turned around and kept on walking, the sirens wailing before I even turned the corner.

So those of you who don’t read this by RSS feed have seen how I’ve personalized Word Press, but believe it or not, there is more to this site than my blog.

Really!

I’ve maintained a personal website since 1998. Initially on Labyrinth, then on Earthlink, and then on various web hosting services. I started my weblog in February of 2002.

Why yes, I did all the coding my hand, thank you. All my web design was done in Arachnophilia, which was a code editor. So no permalinks or anything like that in the early years.

If you go back, what you’ll discover is that since I was writing for myself and sometimes erin (hi erin!), I wrote whatever came to mind. In essence it was to replace the paper journals that I was never capable of keeping up.

Obviously it worked in that I’ve been at this for over six years, but somewhere along the way I seem to have lost that sense of fearlessness about my writing I had then. For example, I can’t remember the last time I wrote about religion, and my posts about politics are few and far between.

Still, that’s a lot of words I’ve written.

I also have a section of writing in general, that contains links to short stories that came from my dreams (I have exceedingly weird dreams, and I sometimes used them as a writing exercise in coherency), and a couple of papers I wrote for school. Those were actually fun. There’s something about a good research paper…

Er… never mind.

OK. So, this somehow ended up being all about the blog anyway. Fine. Tomorrow then.